HK Wetland Park

21-May-2006

The brand new HK Wetland Park was opened to the public on 20-May-2006.

And we just couldn't wait any longer but to go on the next day. The sky look really dark that morning, even the kids knew it would be raining soon. But we still wishfully thought the rain would stop by the time we reached there. So, we took the innocent kids go anyway. And dammit, it started to rain like cats and dogs at halfway. And too bad, the stubborn parents still won't want to turn back...

Wetland Park only consist of 47 parking lots. Despite of heavy rain that morning, all of the parking lots were fully occupied. KS had to park our car at the 'nearby' housing estate. And then he walked for 10 min under the heavy rain to meet us in the main entrance, gosh.

While KS was lining up for the tickets, the kids entered this forbidden zone to "play" with the "ducks". Thank God they didn't "do" anything on the duckies.

Oyster shell made-into-a-wall, guess how mana are there? Whenever I see stuffs being grouped together into something, it pinches my nerve to guess its quantity...

Wetland Park in cloudy and rainy day.

The Wetland Interactive World. It has several themed exhibition galleries, a theatre, a souvenir shop, an indoor play area, and a resource center. The themed exhibition galleries showcase the importance of wetland on biodiversity, civilization and conservation.

The souvenir shop. The things there are quite pricely, I guess most people just watch than buying it home.

Somehow I like these owls, I think our car will look cool if we fill it up with owls.

specimen

The boys exclaimed : "Nemo, Nemo"

specimen

specimen

specimen

Real fish, not specimen.

The aquarium is displaying mock-ups of wetland plants at the Hong Kong Wetland Park

Some sort of freaking primitive plant on earth...

Some sort of freaking alien-like water creature on earth. I forgot what it's called lah.

The documentary show of human civilization is projected on the circular ceiling. People can sit on the chair and look up on it. After 5 min, my neck got sore already. Why can't the chair be tilted to bed-shape wo?

This is one of the screen we saw on the ceiling..

This silent short movie was projected on the wall. People need to stand there and watch.

The kids didn't know to appreciate this seemingly hi-tech game. They just ran here and there for fun. And thus, I have no time to read what is this all about..sigh.

Out there is the Wetland Reserve Center. In every september, different species of birds will start to migrate from the north to south, and they will stop by HK. People can observe the birds at here. Under the cool conditioning environment, I bet watching bird would become an enjoyable activity to do.

This place is the main lobby leading to every different gallaries, look like a musuem?

It's really tired to keep track with the kids. If they could sit there longer, I would love to do that lo.

Inside the children playground. This is the first time we took a group photo with the closest relative to human. Such an honor.

Only 30 kids and their parents were allowed to enter the playground for each session (duration : 20 min). Of course we have to queue up to get a no from 1-30 beforehead.

The 2 tree-house were joined together by a suspension bridge. I think its height is around 15-20 feet above the floor. No wonder they got to limit the number of kids to enter the playground. When I saw little William walked across the bridge, I really felt a little bit nervous about it. I guess those people who looked up their kids there would feel the same too.

Son, this slide is more suitable for you to play, ok?

Every plants..

and every stones, seems perfectly put in the place by proper design.

The Wetland Park is surrounded by several residential skyscrappers. Therefore, we don't feel this is a remote area as it should be.

This little boy was getting fussy at the afternoon time, when it's normally his napping time. Since we have no mood to continue the exploration under the rain anyway, we decided to leave the park at around 2pm.

Due to heavy rain, we could only stay outside for a brief while. We still haven't stepped onto the other facilities like Stream Walk, Succession Walk, Mangrove Boardwalk and Bird Hides that will lead us to venture different habitats of various wildlife. We will do this at winters time, when the weather turns cooler.

Macau

19-June-2005

Macau is 70 kilometres southwest of Hong Kong and 145 kilometres from GuangZhou. It consists of Macau Penisula, and the islands of Taipa and Coloane. Macau was once an island but gradually a connecting sandbar turned into a narrow isthmus.

Pursuant to an agreement signed by China and Portugal on 13 April 1987, Macau became the Macau Special Administrative Region (SAR) of China on 20 December 1999. China has promised that, under its "one country, two systems" formula, China's socialist economic system will not be practiced in Macau, and that Macau will enjoy a high degree of autonomy in all matters except foreign and defense affairs for the next 50 years.

I always wonder, what will happen to HK and Macau after 50 years later?

We were waiting for the arrival of the turbo jet at the Hong Kong - Macau Ferry terminals.

An enduring symbol of Macau is the façade of São Paulo (or, officially, Madre de Deos, Mother of God) Church, built in 1602 next to the first Western college in Asia, the Colégio de São Paulo. The college and the main body of the church were destroyed by fire in 1855.

We see this place as the ruin of the church, but vincent see it as a playground. He was sliding down without any fear.

Luckily this is only a statue...

We were invited to taste the freshly made "almond cookies" by the enthusiastic shoppers. Of course we were happy to do that for them. Well, we can't be that mean to reject their good intention mah...And frankly speaking, the cookies are really yummy

The thing is, the more we ate it, the more we couldn't resist the temptation to buy it home too. We ended up buying a few packets of almond cookies. See, the tactic works. There is no free lunch in this world.

Largo do Senado (Senate Square) has been restored to its colonial-era grandeur.

A night scene from our so-called sea view hotel room.

The next morning, we didn't go anywhere, just relaxed in the hotel. After breakfast, we played water in the pool. My mom prefer to sit on this comfortable sofa and watched the kids playing water.

This is a nice pool. The best part is it's like our own private pool.

The boys were so happy and excited whenever they see a big pool of water.

After 2 hours playing, we felt tired. So, we dragged the boys out from the pool, bathe them with some fresh water. Then get ready to leave Macau by taking the afternoon time ferry.

Besides historical Chinese and Portuguese world-heritage relics, Macau's biggest attraction is its gambling industry and casinos. However, we have little interest to go to casinos or to the historical temples. Basically, we went there for sight-seeing and to enjoy the local foods. The best food I ate was crab porridge and almond cookies. Whenever I think of those foods, my saliva is drooling...